


Breaking Free

by KarenHunt



Category: Sharing Knife - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Alternate view of the time in New Moon Cutoff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-14
Updated: 2010-08-14
Packaged: 2017-10-11 02:21:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KarenHunt/pseuds/KarenHunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arkady's life changes when Dag 'n Fawn arrive at New Moon Cutoff</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking Free

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to Philomytha for helpful direction and suggestions

Arkady walked carefully to his tent in the evening gloom, avoiding the larger puddles from the last two days' rain. As he approached his porch, he spotted his supper basket by the door along with a few letters propped against it. Collecting the basket and the letters, he went inside and put them on his dining table. Then he went over to a nearby shelf and collected a much-written-on piece of paper, a quill, and a bottle of ink. The paper had the names of all the camps in the south along with many names of Raintree camps including all the not-very-many camps in Western Levels. He'd had help from Vayve Blackturtle's husband Tellon in making it. Captain Tellon had been especially helpful in explaining how to address letters to the more distant camps, with directions for which courier stops to send them to and instructions along with the letters explaining how to route the replies on the return trips -- he had explained that letters that needed to go any significant distance which were sent without clear directions sometimes never arrived or took many months before finally doing so. Right now, his list had lines through all but three camp names; exactly matching the three letters he'd just received.

He started some tea, then walked to the sink and washed his hands, trying not to be discouraged by the sight of the letters. They didn't have to mean 'No, we can't help you', after all. But if they did say yes, he couldn't help but think that he'd rather be seeing a medicine maker about forty years old with a letter of introduction in hand instead of just a short note. As he ate his supper, he opened the letters one by one. The first took a while to get to saying "No, sorry we can't help you." He drew a line through that camp's name on his list. The second was shorter and more to the point. He drew a line through that one as well. The third was from a reasonably nearby camp. He'd allowed himself some hope when they didn't respond right away; maybe they had someone they could send? But that letter also gave the answer 'No'; they had just been slow in answering their mail, was all. He crumpled the list and threw it into the fire. The three letters followed it.

Arkady sat with his head bowed for a time. It had been a fool's hope, anyway. He'd known all along that there would be no chance of saving Tawa Killdeer when the time came for her baby to arrive. He needed a second groundsetter to save her, or at least a reasonably skilled apprentice groundsetter. The problem was that the talent was so rare that chances of finding one were poor. Maybe once in five years one person in all the wide green world would develop the ability to project his or her ground. It seemed nobody must have done so recently enough to need apprenticing.

Arkady got up, collected a clean paper, and wrote a note to Maker Challa. He didn't tell her of his failure, only that he was going to take tomorrow off from his duties to get some rest. He repacked the basket and took it out for the neighbor woman to collect; he put the note with it so she could deliver it to Challa for him.

He went to bed early. Not that it did much good. He spent some time at first with his projections out trying to imagine some way that two hands could do the job of four. It was useless. When he woke the next morning, he followed his usual routines in his too-quiet tent. He used to fill his time with training apprentices, but, just right now, he couldn't stand to think of taking on some star-struck twenty year old who was likely to get killed trying to be a hero. _Oh, Sutaw, I should have taught you better, or taken you with me, or something...._ But now how was he to spend his time? After lunch he tried looking over his casebooks; there was nothing compelling and his mind wandered, so he put them away. He made another try after supper; it didn't go any better. The silence was oppressive.

He went to bed early again. His mind wandered this night. The best makers didn't leave their camps, it was said, but really, he himself was quite world-wise by maker standards; in fact, he was world-wise by patroller standards as well. He'd lived in three southern camps and trained apprentices from nearly a dozen others. He'd even trained a woman from south Raintree some eight to ten years back; she'd developed groundsetter potential and came to him to learn its use. She'd brought her husband and children with her while she was here. By comparison, a few of the camp's patrollers had exchanged north in Luthlia or northern Raintree, but not many. Almost the only person in the camp who could really claim to know more of the world than he did was Captain Tellon. He'd stayed at camps in all seven hinterlands, and it was said that he'd seen not just one or two malices during his walk around the Lake, but four. Arkady thought that must be a pretty large number, considering that the only one he'd heard about down here in the south was almost fifty years ago, up towards his old home of Hatchet Slough. That one had been advanced enough to make a batch of thirty or so mud-men out of swamp creatures; the patrollers who killed it had sent his old mentor Haldar a salt-dried body of an alligator-based one. Arkady'd looked at it a bit; it certainly had a lot of long, sharp teeth. Tellon claimed the situation in the north was much more difficult than here, but when young patrollers like Neeta Bobcat returned from tours in Luthlia, all they ever reported meeting was sessiles or early-molts, never with more than one or two batches of mud-men. Patrollers mostly seemed to Arkady to be a bunch of not very disciplined hunters who said they were going to look for malices but never actually found any. It was hard to take them seriously. He did have to admit that Tellon was different from that, and really, even Neeta'd grown up some as a result of having been up north. For all that, it was hard to convince himself that sending their best patrollers north was a good idea. It looked to him like a way to lose half of them, mostly from getting killed by the northern cold.

He woke in the morning in no better of a mood than he'd been evening before last. He ate his breakfast and went out to check up on his patients. The visit to Tawa and her husband was every bit as painful as he expected; their disappointment was plain, though they tried to put a good face on it. When he finished his rounds, he stopped by the medicine tent to tell Challa the news as well. She gave a resigned sigh, then she paused. Plainly, she doubted the wisdom of what she was about to say. "So, since your search failed, I think it's time for you to consider taking on an apprentice from the camp. Now Silda -- she's a cousin to Sutaw -- is slightly young, but there's no question that she has promise as a future medicine maker. You could start up with her now and simply take on some of the earlier training as well. Or I could take care of that part, if you wish, and you'd start with her in two or three months."

Arkady half-closed his ground so she wouldn't see him cringe. He wasn't about to get Sutaw's cousin killed, too. "No. Not yet. I need more time."

"You'll have to take on someone soon enough, and she's not as impetuous as he was." She looked at his closed face and sighed again. "Really, what you need is a partner more than an apprentice."

Arkady's temper boiled over. This on top of Tawa, on top of Sutaw, on top of everything. He snarled at her, "Well, I'll just head on over to stores and pick myself up one, shall I? Do you suppose I can find myself another groundsetter there? There isn't a new one anywhere to be found in all the south or Western Levels or in most of Raintree; do you figure one from Seagate or Oleana will walk up to the gate from off the Trace and ask to talk to me? Tell you what, I'll go back to my tent and wait for him!" He marched off, not slowing down until he was almost home.

When he arrived at his tent, his wits had not cooled. He washed up under the shower and climbed into his bath barrel. With no one to see, he closed his ground and cried for a good long time. When he finished, he climbed out of the barrel, dressed, and went inside. Once there, he opened his ground again, spending a moment to touch it up to conceal the signs in his eyes and around his nose. He supposed he'd have to apologize to Challa later, but he didn't mind putting that off. Meanwhile, lunch time was approaching. He sat in his front room staring at nothing.

After a short time, he sensed Tavia Pelican approaching his tent. If he recalled correctly, she was doing gate guard duty today. Her ground was troubled, but there was no evidence of urgency -- this didn't appear to be an emergency. He got up and met her at his door. She said, a bit uncertainly, "Maker Arkady, sir? There's this man at the gate who wants to talk to you."

"What about?"

She paused a moment to collect the words. "He didn't really say. Just that it's a complicated problem with making and medicine making, not something to talk about in the road."

He stared at her. "Didn't he say anything more than that?"

She looked a bit uncomfortable and said, "No, but his ... wife -- she's there, too -- talked to me and Neeta a few days ago while we were in Graymouth. She said he used to be an Oleana patroller, but that he seems to have a calling for making now and that he can do some amazing things. She wasn't sure if he wanted to apprentice, though; maybe he'd just want to talk to you."

"Well, then, send him over."

She looked more uncomfortable now. "See, sir, there's a problem there. You see, she's a farmer girl, and we can't let her in and he won't come in unless she can come in, too. So, sir, I thought maybe you might be willing to come out to talk to him."

He frowned. "Tell him to go away and don't come back until after he manages to lose the farmer girl."

Tavia looked distressed. "Are you sure? He came all the way from Oleana to talk."

Hmm. She actually wanted him to go out there in spite of the farmer girl. He really didn't want anything more to do with farmers ever again, but he knew Tavia to have good instincts about folks -- unless she just thought the man was cute. Except she definitely had too much sense to think of getting involved with someone who was attached to another person. "Well, I suppose I can go over. I expect my advice to him won't be any different, but maybe it will go better from me than otherwise." He didn't really think he'd succeed in talking some young idiot out of his infatuation, but it could work. In any event, it had to be better than sitting in his tent brooding. He put on his wool coat and headed out to the gate.

As he approached, he saw that instead of a man and a woman as he was expecting, there were three men and a woman; the woman was on a small black-and-white horse, and one of the men was leading the most hostile red monster of a horse he'd ever laid eyes and groundsense on; the saddlebags on that horse included a primed sharing knife -- it was crudely made. The woman looked to be eighteen or nineteen, more girl than woman, and unmistakably a farmer girl. Well, one of the men would be the potential maker he was looking for. If she'd been a Lakewalker, he'd have tried finding marriage cords, but that option was clearly out. Two of the men were young, about the right ages for one of them to be 'married' to her, but neither was a maker -- their grounds, stances, and general messiness proclaimed patroller. The other man was ground-closed. In fact, his ground was closed so tight that Arkady could hardly even tell he had one; no medicine maker ought to be able to do that strong a veiling. He was the one nearest to the girl, but he was in his mid-fifties, likely within a few years of Arkady's own age. He also took the patroller picture to its extreme end; his shabby, muddy clothing and short-cut tangled rats' nest of hair said vagabond more than it said patroller. Combine all that with how extremely tall and thin he was, and he made a perfect scarecrow -- one that had been dragged around a muddy field by a pack of dogs and then stuck back up onto its post. He was moving his left arm partway behind his back; ah, missing the left hand, and with some kind of hook arrangement in its place. It was not a new injury, either. That detail added quite well to the scarecrow picture.

Well, this man couldn't be the one who wanted to talk to him. Arkady passed his eyes and ground over the party a second time, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. The farmer girl up on the horse was tiny and very cute, but with some disquieting scars on her neck. They were in the shape of the hand of a very large person. If they'd been bruises, he'd figure she'd been attacked recently, except that there weren't any other marks visible on her face. They looked a bit like burns -- perhaps some bizarre farmer branding ritual, but on the neck? -- except he could see that her ground had been injured underneath. He wondered if there were more scars and started to look at her ground more closely. _Treating farmers again, are you, Arkady?_ He dropped her from his attention, moving to the older man. Nothing new to observe, no explanation for his presence here that he could come up with. The young men appeared to be patrol partners. His eye paused on the taller boy. Maybe he and the older man were father and son -- they had similar builds and both had dark hair. Then the farmer girl would be married to that boy, and she'd be in the back with his father because they both had horses to watch over and possibly as some sign of support from the father. In which case, maybe that patroller boy was the one he was supposed to meet with?

He stopped in front of them and decided to try out that guess. "Tavia's tale seems a trifle confused. But if that's your boy, there, I can tell you right now he doesn't have the ground to apprentice for a medicine maker. He's a patroller born. If you've come all this way for a different answer than you had at home, I'm sorry for it, because I can't give it to you."

The boy was startled and taken aback. His ground actually showed some wistfulness; it seemed he wished the older man actually was his father. But he said, "No sir. That's not what we're here for. And Dag's not my father, he's my ... um. Captain, I guess."

So, the vagabond is an um-captain? It looked like Arkady was putting together a name for the fellow: Um-captain Dag Scarecrow Something Oleana. It also seemed he was the one who was wanting to talk; otherwise the boy would have mentioned his partner. But he couldn't possibly be looking for apprenticing at his age. Looking for an explanation of why else the man had come here, his eye fell on the um-captain's hook. Oh, dear, no. "Ah. You may have been misled by rumor. On a day with the right wind at my back, I can do some useful things, but I don't make miracles. I'm afraid there's not much I can do for your arm. That injury's far too old."

The um-captain mumbled, seeming to have trouble getting the words out of his mouth. "I'm not here about my missing hand, sir. It's not Remo who's interested in training for medicine maker. It's me."

Arkady thought he couldn't be hearing right. This older fellow thinks he's a new maker? "Surely not. Maker's talents, if you have them, should have shown by age twenty. Even a groundsetter's potential should be starting to show by age forty."

More mumbling. "I was long gone for patroller by then, and no one much could have stopped me. My maker's calling was ... delayed. But everything changed for me this year, from my name to my ground." The man swallowed. Arkady wanted to tell him he'd be able to talk better if he spit the rocks out of his mouth, but decided that was unnecessarily impolite. Well, now he had the fellow's name and history completed: Um-captain Dag Scarecrow of Simpleton Camp, Oleana -- formerly a patroller, now a vagabond, maybe crazy.

The farmer girl spoke up, giving a list of healings that the fellow had done recently. If her descriptions were accurate, then some of what he'd done should have required groundsetter's potential. But how likely was it she'd know what she was talking about, anyway? She finished her list by adding, "And he made a sharing knife. Before that he did patrol healing on the trail, I guess, but since last summer all this other has come roaring out." She continued talking, but Arkady wasn't listening. He'd made a sharing knife? Without training? Yes, Arkady figured he knew involution theory well enough to perform a rededication if he ever wanted to, but this fellow? Really, though, what would an ignorant farmer girl know anyway? Likely she'd think the warmth of a ground reinforcement was something really amazing. He tried once again to look at the um-captain's ground, but it was just as tight-veiled as before. No answers to be found there.

He turned to the older patroller boy -- Remo was his name. "Have you seen this?"

The boy and his partner both claimed her statements were accurate, and their grounds showed awe at their companion rather than disbelief. This really wasn't possible, there had to be a hundred reasons why a mid-fifties vagabond former patroller couldn't have recently developed groundsetter potential. Casting about, Arkady came up with one reason, anyway. "If so, why wasn't he invited -- snatched up! -- by the makers at one of those camps along the river?" They'd want his talent badly enough that they'd be more than willing to squint at his farmer bride's ground and claim she was just some unfortunate Lakewalker who'd not developed much groundsense.

She answered, "All the folks he healed were farmers."

Arkady recoiled. This absent-gods-be-forsaken man had been playing his tricks on farmers, not caring if he beguiled most of them, just to fool his companions into thinking he was something amazing?! Nearly ready to throttle the idiot, he said furiously, "You unspeakable fool! You went and left all those poor people mad with beguilement?"

The man actually smiled slightly as he said, "No, sir. Because between Fawn, Remo, Hod and me, we cracked unbeguilement as well. I could see it was the first thing had to be done, if I meant to be a medicine maker to farmers. Which I did and do."

Arkady stared. This was getting worse and worse. Now the um-captain claims to have solved a thousand-year-old mystery that had stymied the best medicine makers too many times to count? Right. Sure. He became aware that his mouth was hanging open and closed it. He also decided he'd heard as much of this lunatic's claims as he needed. "You're raving. And I can't be dealing with a renegade."

A bit of name-calling followed. Arkady was perfectly well aware that he was taking his bad mood out on the fellow, but really, he deserved it. What a waste of time this had turned out to be. He closed by telling the fellow, "Off with you. Get out of this camp." He started to return to his tent, planning to brood some more. It was a better use of his time than this, anyway.

Now, finally, the fellow popped open his ground. _He can pack that much ground into a tight-veiling!_ Shocked, Arkady didn't notice the ground projection coming out from the fellow until it reached his own left hand and dragged a ground-finger along it, drawing blood. _You dare do this to me!_ The outrage was replaced quickly by anger. _You'd even consider doing such a thing to any patient!_ Turning back, he paused to repair the damage -- it was the work of a moment to stem the bleeding. About to tell the man off for making such a dreadful use of a healer's tool, Arkady was stopped cold by the condition of his ground. Yes, it was extremely dense, just as a groundsetter's ground ought to be, but it was in a horrendous state. He didn't know what the dark ripples on the left side and shoulder were, nor could he even guess as to how they'd come about. There were serious disruptions in his ground, too; the worst by far was upper-middle torso, just below the neck. Others were in his head, left arm, and back. Everywhere Arkady looked, his ground was thoroughly contaminated. On top of all that, the man's ground was roiling wildly; he was very distressed, in spite of his calm face and voice.

The man was also talking. "... to the artery from your heart just as easily. At your first heartbeat, it would have burst, and you'd have been dead in the next. And I'm walkin' around loose out here. If I'm not to turn into a real renegade, a man who just needs killin', I need _some_ kind of a pathfinder. Because right now I'm almost as lost as I've ever been."

That misuse of his projection had been deliberate. Behind the words, the former patroller's ground showed him embarrassed, desperate, and terrified. Not a madman, no, but perilously close to the edge, and he knew it. Whatever purpose he had in coming here, he was in serious need of help.

Neeta and Tavia had their knives out. Really, that wasn't much use -- if the fellow'd been planning to kill him, he'd have done so already, just as he said. Arkady waved them back. It looked like his search for a new apprentice had succeeded, maybe. _Oh, Sutaw_.... Only now did Arkady realize that he had only half wanted it to do so; he wasn't ready for a new student. Not that it mattered now. Well, if he did have a new apprentice, he'd better take charge right from the start. He straightened up, flicked the drops of blood from his fingers, and told the fellow just what he thought of that abuse of a projection. "_That_ was an inexcusably clumsy piece of groundsetting. If you were an apprentice of mine, I'd have your hide for groundwork that ripped into a patient like that."

Arkady expected him to either defend his action or ask how to do better, and was planning to judge his intelligence by how little time he put into the first choice. As a result, he was taken completely by surprise by the man's actual response. The terror and desperation drained out of his ground like pus from a newly-opened wound. The relief that took its place, flooding his ground, was astonishing to behold. The man turned white as a sheet, collapsed shaking to his knees, and covered his face with his hand. His farmer girl, alarmed, slipped down from her horse, trotted over to him, and asked, "Dag? Are you all right? Are you laughing, or crying?" When the fellow claimed he thought it might be both, Arkady figured that was probably exactly right. It seemed somehow that he'd just done healing work on the man. But what, and how?

Arkady wasn't alarmed, exactly, but it did occur to him that he'd never misguessed any person so completely as he'd just done with this fellow. He also wondered what to do with the man's hide now that he had it. Rubbing his chin, he decided, first, that he needed to find out what was really going on; and second, that he was absolutely certain any further conversation had better be in private. He sighed. "You all had better come down to my place. I don't think I can deal with this in the middle of the road."

Neeta wasn't happy about letting the farmer girl into camp. "All of them, sir?"

Arkady decided not to say anything cutting. Though, really, the man had made it clear he wouldn't come in without the farmer girl; it wasn't likely he'd change his mind even now. "They seem to come as a set. Yes, all. Tavia, tell the women I'll be having four guests for lunch today."

Arkady walked over and held out a hand to the man. He took it and rose, closing his ground as he did so.

Leading them back to his tent, he spent some time sorting out what he'd learned and what he wanted to know. The first clear thing he knew was that this man had indeed developed groundsetter potential. From what tale he'd been given so far, it seemed he'd done so less than a year ago. It should be easy enough to find out if that was really so. That was one thing to find out. _What had the man done to his ground?! _Grabbing him around the neck and demanding to know the answer to that question was probably not how to get it, though. That was a second thing to learn. How was it the fellow had come to New Moon Cutoff looking for him? And all the way from Oleana, at that. Surely it couldn't have been in response to his letters -- he didn't even send any to Oleana, nor could one possibly have gotten there in time. There's a third thing. He couldn't have solved beguilement, could he? Arkady remembered his own days with treating farmers, how he'd flailed around trying all kinds of things to keep from beguiling them. It was much more likely the fellow was just mistaken -- got lucky a few times and thought he'd figured it out. That made four things to learn. More than that could wait until he knew more. He pointed out patrol headquarters to the left, and the medicine tent to the right as he turned onto the shore road leading to his place.

As they approached his tent, the farmer girl and the patroller boys stared in astonishment; didn't the boys at least know that groundsetters were due such comforts? His own mentor had explained to him that his duty was to be deserving of them by giving his camp his best work. The former patroller didn't even notice -- he was too closed down into himself. Considering matters, Arkady decided to start with asking how he'd come here; it wasn't the most pressing question, but the answering of it should explain 'What did you do to your ground?' better than a direct approach would.

They wiped their feet as they entered, not that it would do much good considering how much mud was on them all. Once inside, he headed for the hearth to make tea. He told his guests, "You can wash your hands at the sink." When it was the fellow's -- Dag's -- turn, Arkady watched, curious to know if he would be able to do the job properly; this was something that any prospective medicine maker would have to be able to do. He had no difficulty, so Arkady returned to making the tea. He set out five mugs and some honey, brought over the tea, sat, poured, and offered the honey. After Dag took a sip, he looked toward Arkady and opened his ground about half-way, waiting for questions. Not enough; Arkady tapped his ground over the heart, drawing a line to Dag's right almost to the edge of his chest: _open wider -- much wider_. He did as requested, though a flush of embarrassment showed in his ground. Arkady began, "So --". Hmm. He was stopped right at the start. No, not um-captain, but not Dag yet, either. Patroller? No, he's not one any more. Well, then, "ex-patroller -- how have you come to me? New Moon Cutoff seems a long way from Oleana." That should give Dag plenty of room to explain himself.

*************************************************************

By lunch, Dag and his farmer girl had taken turns telling him the most extraordinary tale of two malices and horrific magery he'd ever heard. Like something from a folk tale, but it had happened just in the last few months to these two, and with ample evidence in both their grounds to eliminate any thought of exaggerated or misunderstood events. Arkady spent lunchtime thinking over what he'd learned.

First, Dag had no idea that his new abilities were groundsetter potential. What had this Maker Hoharie been thinking? Likely she'd been thrown off by the oddities in how his talent presented itself, but surely she had to have figured it out after she witnessed his actions at Bonemarsh. Well, he had no way to ask her, so he'd have to let that one go. Dag's asymmetry would need fixing; Arkady had no idea how to go about that, but Dag had claimed that each time he gained a new ability with projections, he'd been upset just before. Probably that was a necessary parameter.

Second, malices in the north were much worse than he'd believed. Dag seemed to consider the Glassforge malice to be not too far from routine, even though it had figured out how to mind-slave farmers and was running a bandit gang; the Raintree one went far beyond anything he'd ever imagined could happen. He recalled when Dag had paused before telling him about the groundlock in Bonemarsh; when he wasn't sure his tale would be understood. Arkady'd been just about to tell Dag he wasn't some ignorant farmer when he realized that the ignorant farmer next to him knew quite a bit more about malices than he did. _So, if you know less than some ignorant farmer, what does that make you?_

Third, he'd never guessed a man like Dag was even possible. He'd done hair-raising, awe-inspiring magery and called it 'a little extra groundwork' -- as if it wasn't much of anything. He then topped that tale with a horrifying description of the farmer town of Greenspring and then topped that one by stating that he'd voluntarily left his own people to find a way to prevent tragedies like it from happening again. The pain in Dag's ground showed clearly when he explained why he'd left them; so did the certainty that he'd done the right thing. Arkady knew exactly how much half-banishment hurt from his own experience with it, at the end of his disastrous experiment with healing farmers. He and Bryna had pleaded with their camp council not to send them away. But they'd had somewhere to be sent to, at least. Dag had picked his exile voluntarily, with nowhere clear to go, and with no particular plan except to find a way.

Fourth, Dag and his farmer girl were a team. Any thought of forcing or ordering them apart was beyond futile -- Dag would leave in an eye-blink. That left convincing each of them that the other couldn't live properly among their own people so long as they stayed together. The problem with that plan was that Arkady was far from convinced it would work -- they both were certain they'd done the right thing in staying together. Well, that didn't need taking care of immediately, so he would do best to wait and watch a bit to decide what to do.

Which, now that he thought of it, brought him to the next topic. Beguilement. He considered the traces of groundwork he'd seen in the farmer girl's womb. If Dag thought he'd solved beguilement and was looking to do more work on her, then that needed taking care of right off, before he got himself into serious trouble by beguiling his wife. Thinking it over, Arkady decided he'd do best to tread carefully into this. He frowned, paused, and then said, "Your wife does not appear to be beguiled."

This brought on another tale, nearly as awful as the first one; though not in so much of a folk-tale way. Dag's story of how he and his companions figured out beguilement was only the beginning. As Arkady learned in horrifying detail what all he had done to his ground, his anger at Dag for nearly killing himself -- the very thought of taking in mosquito ground made him shudder -- was tempered by the realization that the man had been flailing around in the dark with no way of getting help. Naturally he'd get himself into trouble. Arkady thought that if he ever met this Maker Hoharie, he'd have a great deal to say to her about allowing anyone to wander off completely ignorant of the changes they were just beginning to undergo. Which, again, didn't seem overly likely just now.

Well, it was clear what needing doing: Dag needed apprenticing before he got himself killed, and he knew it, too. Arkady was the only person anywhere nearby who could give the help that was needed. That made his next steps obvious. He set the four of them to the job of cleaning themselves up while he went off to talk to the council.

Walking over to patrol headquarters, he pictured the possibilities for treating Tawa. It worked well -- it was easy to come up a job for a not-highly-skilled person -- so long as there weren't any extra problems. It would go much better if he could get Dag's right-side projection to come out, though. That was the first task, then. After that, training in control of blood flow. Looking farther ahead, he pictured more possibilities. Dag's astonishing creativity could combine with Arkady's own deep knowledge of making techniques in interesting ways. And, if he was working with Dag, he wouldn't have to be so terribly careful not to expend too much of his own ground when treating patients -- he'd have room to experiment from time to time, knowing that Dag could take up the extra work. The possibilities there were even more exciting than the ones for Tawa. He reminded himself not to get too far ahead of himself; first he had to get permission to keep Dag here at all.

At patrol headquarters, Arkady found Captain Antan alone in his inner office. He knew not to try to get permission from Antan directly; Antan would refuse first, and not trouble to hear arguments later. Arkady told him, "I need to speak with the council as soon as possible about a matter of making and apprenticing." That should keep Antan from trying to push his way into this before the others could arrive. Antan asked the man in his front office to send for the members of the council.

As Arkady waited for them all to arrive, he asked Antan to let him take a look at the report from last summer's big malice outbreak up in Raintree. Antan looked questioningly at him; Arkady'd never expressed interest in patrol doings before. After a few moments with no explanation, though, he went over to a shelf and shuffled through it some; he came back with a stack of about ten pages of paper. Looking it over, Arkady learned that Dag's tent name was given as Redwing, but that otherwise the details of the report were closely matched by the details of the story he'd been given -- except that the farmer girl's role was omitted here. The injuries Dag had taken were not described in much detail, but there was enough to leave Arkady wondering just how long it must have taken before he could do ground projecting again; the medicine maker Hoharie had refused to predict how long his recovery would take, saying only that it would be longer than the other part-groundripped patroller, who was like to need several months. Dag hadn't mentioned that the malice had turned on him, too.

After he finished reading the report, Arkady considered how best to convince the council to agree to allow Dag and his farmer girl to stay. Antan would never agree to such a flouting of tradition. Jolia Pelican -- Tavia's aunt -- and Farri would be easy enough; they mostly accepted his judgments without question. For the other two, Nidan wasn't likely to approve, but he had close friends in the Killdeer tent; Bala wasn't much likelier to be friendly, but she would go along with whatever she thought the majority believed. So Arkady's job was to convince Nidan to tolerate this, and to keep Antan from making any unilateral decisions against Dag's staying.

Once the council members were all present and seated, Arkady stood. "As you know, I've spent the last three months searching for a groundsetter's apprentice in the hope of having a chance to save Tawa Killdeer when the time for her child arrives. Two days ago, I heard from the last of the camps I'd sent letters to; the search has failed, nobody has anyone to send. Just a few hours ago, however, a man came to our gate asking to speak with me. He's a northern patroller from Oleana, and he knows nothing of my search -- he was looking for help understanding a collection of abilities he's recently acquired. It turns out that he's developed groundsetter potential. Judging from the tale he told me, I'd say he's destined to become a mage; he's certainly a prodigy. In any event, I think he's the best chance I can hope for to try to save Tawa."

Nidan spoke up. "That's wonderful! But why do you need to speak with us about him?"

"Because there is a difficulty that needs addressing. He's not a member of any camp because he's string-bound to a farmer girl."

Antan scowled. "New Moon Cutoff is not going to have a farmer staying here."

The argument that followed was predictable in form. Antan hated the idea, but couldn't bring himself to say 'let Tawa die'. Bala made dire mutterings about what the world was coming to when folks actually considered letting farmers into Lakewalker camps, but she never came out and said she'd oppose Arkady's plans. Nidan tried to argue for taking Dag in just until Tawa's childbirth and then throwing him out right after. The open revulsion from Arkady and Jolia that that statement won quieted him down. Arkady let it be known that he was willing to let the farmer girl stay in his own tent, along with the two patroller boys who were accompanying her and Dag.

Finally Antan gave in, saying, "I suppose the group of them can stay in your tent for the time being, but understand, if there's any trouble, they go right then and there. The farmer girl had better not go wandering around camp bothering everybody -- make sure she has an escort if she tries to go anywhere." The other council members nodded, looking relieved; clearly they felt this was a reasonable set of restrictions.

Arkady nodded, then gathered each of the councillors by eye, focusing especially on Antan. "And you all understand this -- if you have any problem with Dag's farmer girl, you bring it to me, not to him."

He left patrol headquarters reasonably cheerfully. _So far so good_. Next stop was the medicine tent. It was a short walk. Approaching, he spotted Challa's ground and her partner Tandi's a short distance inside the door -- they were probably talking together; both appeared troubled. Levan was outside, but just coming in from his herb garden with a few winter plant cuttings in a basket. They all looked over as he entered; Challa broke off from her low-voiced conversation with her partner Tandi and frowned uncertainly.

Arkady smiled. "Challa, good to see you again, and my apologies about earlier. Tandi, Levan, good to see you, too. Sit down -- there's something I'd like to discuss with you all."

Looking mystified, they walked over to the nearest table and sat. Arkady chose a seat between Challa and Levan. They looked questioningly at him. He started with, "Challa, I've decided that you were right this morning; I do need to start work with a new apprentice."

Smiling in relief, she answered, "Oh! That's good to hear. Will you be going over to Silda's family's place to let them know, then?"

Arkady answered, "No, not Silda. You can take her on yourself, if you'd like to. I'll be training a groundsetter's apprentice; I've just finished a most interesting talk with him."

Challa blinked. "I thought your search had failed."

Arkady's smile widened. "It seems I just didn't wait quite long enough. Dag turned up at the gate a few hours ago; he'd come in from off the Trace. It seems that he's from a camp up in the northwestern corner of Oleana."

Challa stared openmouthed, touching her hand to her mouth. "How did he ever come here?"

"As I understand it, he and his wife left his camp this last fall; they rode down to the Grace River, took a flatboat down to Graymouth, and walked here from there."

Levan was openly shocked. "Arkady, you can't seriously mean to say that some forty-or-so year old medicine maker made a journey of that length in response to your letters! He'd have had to leave about the same time you were sending them -- long before one could have reached there!"

Arkady chuckled. "I'm not saying that at all. In the first place, I'd guess him to be mid-fifties -- it appears his abilities emerged very late. In the second place he's not a medicine maker yet -- he's a former patroller. And in the third place, it wasn't in response to my letters -- he was on a private journey." At their stunned looks, he added, "Patrollers make such long journeys sometimes, you know." In fact, thinking about his conversation, it appeared that it might well have been the farmer girl's idea to seek him out, since she was the one who'd talked to Tavia in Graymouth. He added, "Because he doesn't have a medicine maker's training yet, I'd like to have him spend time with you as well, Challa."

She blinked, then nodded and shook her head both at the same time. She seemed to be having difficulty understanding what he'd said. Or perhaps she was hoping that she was misunderstanding him while realizing that she probably wasn't. After a moment, she said, "I hope you're willing to tell us more about this fellow. That's a strange tale."

Arkady grinned. "I haven't even gotten to the strange parts of it."

She said, rather hollowly, "Do tell, then."

"Dag appears to have first produced a groundsetting projection just last summer. As a result of how late it was in emerging, his skill in its use appears to have developed astonishingly abruptly -- he has strength and control that would normally take five or six years to develop."

Tandi broke in. "_A_ groundsetting projection -- just _one_? They normally come in pairs, right and left, don't they?"

"That's another oddity with him; he only produces a left-side projection. The other should exist; I plan to see what I can do to correct his asymmetry as soon as I can."

Levan asked, "I suppose he must be strongly left-handed, then?"

"No. In fact he's exclusively right-handed. It looks like he lost the left hand about twenty or so years ago; he wears a harness on his arm that holds a wristcuff in place; there's a hook attached to the cuff."

Challa gave him a strange look. "Exclusively right-handed _and_ exclusively left-handed? I wouldn't have thought such a thing possible.... This will affect what kinds of tasks I can assign him, you know."

Arkady smiled. "I'm sure you can manage."

She frowned slightly. "Mostly I guess I'll have him doing groundwork at first. Reinforcements and such."

"Uh ... no." Arkady shook his head. "I'm thinking I'll be having to quarantine him from groundwork for a time. It seems the people of his camp didn't realize he was developing groundsetting potential, and as a result, he's had no idea why he suddenly gained all these new abilities. He's been flailing around in the dark his entire journey south, doing horrifying experiments to try to understand what's been happening, and as a result, his ground is in a dreadful state. I don't know what I'll do if it can't clean itself out on its own."

Challa frowned. "If I can't give him hand tasks, and I can't give him groundworking tasks, just what are you thinking I can assign him to do?"

"You're resourceful. I'm sure you can manage."

Challa's frown deepened. "That's not funny."

Arkady paused a moment, thinking. "Actually, I think he's not going to be as ignorant as the usual patroller or near-twenty-year-old apprentice. He's also been through a rough last six or so months. Some time spent with him mostly watching and listening might do him and us a bit of good. He can have a bit of rest, and we can determine what he knows and what he needs to be taught in the meantime."

Challa nodded.

Arkady then cleared his throat and said, "There's one other important thing to know about Dag. He's married -- string-bound, actually -- to a farmer girl around nineteen years old; they and their two patroller boy companions will be staying with me, in my tent."

All three started protesting. Arkady broke into their protests with, "I have permission from the camp council to keep them here for the time being. I don't know what I'll be doing about the situation, but I would stress that it's my job to deal with it -- not yours. He left his own people rather than give her up; I expect he'd leave here in a heartbeat if we tried to compel him."

Challa stared piercingly at him. "Arkady. I thought you of all folk knew better than to get mixed up with farmers."

Arkady closed his eyes for a moment, considering how best to put his thoughts into words. "This is a special case. He's in desperate and immediate need of teaching. He's also the kind of apprentice I never imagined I would have the privilege of teaching -- a prodigy, well on his way to becoming a mage. Unless he manages to kill himself through ignorance first. I want to see what I can do with him."

Challa looked askance. "And how exactly do you know him to be a prodigy after just a few hours talk?"

Arkady shook his head in amazement remembering that 'just a few hours talk.' Taking a deep breath, he said, "Remember Haldar, our mentor in Moss River, and what he said about the five kinds of apprentice?"

She held out her left hand, touching first her little finger. "First are the unsuited students; you do them no favors trying to train them -- your main job is to help them find more suitable work." Moving inward to the next finger, "Second are the ordinary apprentices. Most of the work in a camp is done by ordinary makers; it is an important responsibility to shape them well so their makings will be done well." Moving to the middle finger, she said, "Next is the potential senior maker; maybe one in ten students will be that capable. They learn quickly and well, their work influences the other makers in their camps; to teach them is a pleasure. You might even learn a few things from them." For the index finger, she said, "Next is the genius. Maybe one in ten senior makers will be that capable; you might get one such student in all your years of teaching. They will teach you new things while you teach them, their influence spreads throughout their district. Teaching one is a real privilege. Haldar said you were such a student." For the thumb she said, "Last is the true prodigy. Prodigies aren't necessarily sharper or more talented than geniuses; the difference is the way their talent overflows into all their doings and the way they are constantly discovering new things. They will transform you every bit as much as you transform them, and teaching one goes beyond privilege to absolute terror. A prodigy may well end up changing the world. Mind you, he also said he'd never taught such a person himself, and he didn't know anyone who ever had, either."

Arkady said, "He also said you'd know if an apprentice was a prodigy right from the start."

Challa asked, skeptically, "How would he know, if he'd never run across any and never known anyone who'd done so, either?"

"Well, he was right. For example, Dag's solved beguilement -- he showed me how it works and how to remove it with his farmer bride; there's no mistaking he's figured it out." Challa blinked, opened her mouth, then closed it and stared. Continuing, Arkady said, "Another thing -- with no training whatsoever and no supervision, he bonded a sharing knife. Third and most astonishing, he's performed the most stunning magery I've ever learned of. Do you know much about the malice that emerged last summer up in Raintree?"

"There was a medicine tent circular about it, with a description of how the malice groundlocked a group of makers together. It arrived about two months ago, and it mostly provided an explanation of how to deal with such things. I don't remember it very well; it didn't seem all that relevant to us."

Arkady smiled again. "It is now. Dag and his farmer girl were there -- he got caught in the groundlock, and she was the one who thought of stabbing him in the leg with a primed knife to break the lock. As it happened, the knife she used was primed strangely, with the death of a person lacking malice affinity. So he broke the knife's involution apart, melded his projection to that dying ground and used the combination to destroy the involution that was holding the lock together. He destroyed most of the ground of his left arm in the process, judging from the pattern of scars in his ground."

"Scars? How does a ground get scars?"

"He informs me that a groundsetter's taking in of ground is the same as a malice's ground-ripping. It turns out that he tried to rip the malice when he encountered it. The scars are from the bits of its ground that stuck to him. They came out when he destroyed the lock. I'll swear I've never learned so many things in one interview with a new student in all my life."

Challa shook her head, but agreed to try teaching this odd new student.

"One more thing," Arkady said. "Don't be fooled by his shabby clothes or his just-a-simple-patroller air; he's one of the sharpest people I've ever met." About to leave, Arkady asked for and got the medicine-tent circular, then spent a few minutes reading it over. Once again, there was no mention of the farmer girl; the knife might have stabbed Dag by itself for all he could tell from the writing.

*************************************************************

The next morning, Dag got his first look at groundsetting when Tapp arrived on a litter. Tapp was getting old for patrolling; he'd become something of a regular at the medicine tent over the last few years as a result of his trying to keep up with the younger fellows and not really being able to do so any more. He didn't want to hear that his body was starting to wear down, either. Dag showed himself able enough in diagnostic readings and in close viewing, though he could stand to improve in his ground sensitivity. He also held his own in bantering with their not-very-polite patient.

When Arkady finished with Tapp, he went off to visit his tent-bound patients; he spent some time planning out just how to tell Tawa and her family that there was now good reason for hope, but still no certainty. He didn't want them to think they were out of danger just because he had found a groundsetting assistant. Between tents, he also thought about Dag's situation. There was quite a bit more to solve than simply the questions of how to bring out Dag's right-side projection, or how to cleanse the contamination from his ground, or what to do about his farmer wife. To start, he very much wanted to know just what had caused Dag's long delay in developing groundsetter potential. All he knew so far from Dag was that he'd spent at least fifteen years in a half-living state, in which he was, figuratively speaking, lying in his grave waiting to die. The hand injury, being about twenty years old, seemed likely to be connected with whatever had happened. And, perhaps the most interesting question of all, how did it come about that Dag was on the way to becoming a mage? In the last five hundred years, there'd been about a hundred makers who'd developed groundsetter potential; none of them had become mages. It wasn't just due to the time Dag had spent unsupervised, either -- he'd begun traveling this path practically from the first day he'd developed projection abilities. Maybe Arkady could find out by studying him.

That evening, Arkady stopped by Challa's place to learn how his apprentice had done in the medicine tent. It looked like he'd be managing well enough, if today was any guide. Then he mentioned to Challa that he'd appreciate it if she would pass on any hints she got as to what had happened to Dag's hand, since he thought it likely that it was related to whatever had had such a drastic effect on his development as a groundsetter.

Challa answered, "Well, I can tell you something about that already. It was bitten off by a mud-wolf; these are like mud-men, but they get made by malices that have eaten wolves instead of people. Malices happen like that sometimes in the north. The mud-wolf was near as big as a horse, and Dag killed it by cutting its throat at the same time that it took his hand."

Arkady stared at her. "How did you ever learn that from him? He wouldn't say anything more to me than to confirm that it was twenty years ago!"

"He didn't tell me -- he told Devon Blackturtle. Devon was brought in for stitches by his papa after yet another fight with his older brother."

Arkady shook his head. He considered preparing the camp's seven-year-olds with questions so he could learn more about the incident, but decided it wouldn't be possible to do so in secret. When he returned to his tent, he added these details into Dag's casebook after the notes about the condition of his ground.

*************************************************************

Over the next few weeks, Arkady discovered that teaching Dag was turning out to be stranger than he'd guessed it would. Dag proved hopelessly ignorant of much of the basic training in making, so Arkady found himself teaching lessons that would normally be given to sixteen-year-olds. He was similarly ignorant of the details of childbearing, so that Arkady was again teaching lessons that would normally be taught to young apprentices. But, if a condition were something a bright patroller might come across, Dag suddenly knew a great deal; on a few occasions, even more than he or Challa.

One day the first week, a man was brought in with a broken leg; something of a stoic, he'd closed his ground tightly after his fall from his tent roof. When Challa tried to examine him, he wasn't able to open his ground; nor did her relaxation or distraction techniques work to break through his veiling. Dag told the fellow to reach out to Challa and try to take the reinforcement from her. When he tried it, his ground opened, and she was able to get a reinforcement into his leg; after that, treatment was much easier. Dag's only comment about it was that it was one of Hoharie's tricks up in Hickory Lake.

About two weeks later, a patroller was brought in with a collection of injuries, including some bad muscle tears -- he'd fallen from his horse and been dragged by the stirrup for a short distance before his companions got the horse stopped. Dag explained to the patrol medicine maker about a trick with reinforcements that they used up north to improve healing of muscle tears; it was an imitation of shaped reinforcements for people who couldn't do them -- dots of dense ground reinforcement that increased in density as they approached the destination where the muscle was supposed to reattach, and a very light reinforcement over the region to connect the dots together. Asking about that brought out a tale of Dag and Maker Hoharie collaborating over a few years -- he'd cooked up a more primitive version of the technique on his own, and she'd experimented with designs until they worked out the current version of the method. Arkady doubted that all of their patrol medicine makers would be able to learn to do dense dots, but he expected it would be worthwhile to have Dag teach lessons in the technique to those who could.

That evening, when Arkady went to Challa's tent to discuss their progress in training Dag, he mentioned the idea to her and that they might do well to have more people than just future patrol leaders exchanging north; maybe they should get some kind of medicine making exchanges happening as well.

Challa looked thoughtful. "Maybe we could arrange some kind of swapping among patrol medicine makers. That way we keep our numbers balanced, and we get the exchange of ideas. I might talk about this with our captains, see what they think."

Arkady added, "Just don't try the idea on Antan unless you get the rest of them agreeing first -- he'll reject anything that isn't an already-known tradition."

In all, Arkady was working out a complicated picture of Dag's prior life as a patroller. Dag's breadth of experience with people from all over the wide green world was astonishing -- he'd been to other hinterlands and to a great many camps in Oleana; he had tales of patrol-healing techniques from more places than Arkady'd known even existed. Arkady wondered how he'd ever thought himself to be world-wise. Just how much had he missed out on by taking up making with no time spent in the patrol? It looked to be an important piece in how to create a mage -- maybe there really should be exchange makers, as Dag named himself. His casebook was beginning to have some very interesting entries in it.

*************************************************************

  
The time for Tawa's child to be born came about two weeks earlier than expected. Arkady assigned Dag to the task of keeping her from bleeding to death around the placenta, while he took on the repairs to the injuries that resulted from opening her up to extract the babe. As he worked, he kept an eye on Dag to be sure he wasn't getting overwhelmed; if he were to collapse or run off, they would have serious problems. Not only did Dag not collapse, he managed his task while sharing a truly stunning amount of her pain at the same time. Arkady had not instructed him to do so, but he was very glad that Dag was able. Fawn held up well, too -- better than Levan's apprentice Nola, in any event. While she couldn't do any groundwork or sharing of pain, holding Tawa's foot down to keep her still was vitally important. Arkady was actually glad Dag had talked him into letting Fawn help out in the medicine tent.

The moment they finished, Dag ran out of the room with Fawn supporting him; he'd gone up to and somewhat past his limits for groundworking and sharing pain. Challa was just finishing examining Tawa's little girl; she walked over to the hearth to start some tea.

Tawa's husband, now holding their new daughter, asked, "Will Tawa live? Are we out of danger now?"

Arkady held out a hand in caution. "So far so good, but there's still the danger of her taking infection. I'll be sending people to her tent several times a day to give reinforcements, but it'll be about two days before we can be sure all is well."

"How can we ever thank you?" he asked.

"Mostly, you don't thank me. I didn't do anything I haven't done many times over already. It's Dag you should be thanking. This is all new to him, and he did better than I dared hope for."

Tawa spoke, quietly but reasonably clearly. "Did you see how much pain he was taking on? I didn't know anybody could do that much."

Arkady nodded. "I must say, I've never seen the like. His people were out of their minds letting him leave them."

Challa brought over two cups of tea. Handing them to Arkady, she said, "_I_ wonder what his people were thinking to allow him to go out as a patroller in the first place. He ought to have been trained as a medicine maker from the start -- and he wouldn't have ended up in this fix with a farmer girl, either. Instead, his camp would have a highly skilled groundsetter about now."

Arkady imagined it. Dag as a medicine maker, probably married to a Lakewalker woman, also probably with children. Some fifteen or so years ago, he'd have developed projection abilities and gone off for training -- maybe even with Arkady. Three years later, Dag would return to his home camp a fully-trained groundsetter; a great benefit to his camp, very much a successful outcome -- Arkady would have been most pleased. And yet.... Dag would have been a genius, certainly, but a prodigy? Likely not. And the world would not now have a mage in the making, either. They all would have missed out on something truly extraordinary, and nobody would have known to miss it. It seemed that producing a mage required someone far outside the norm, with a much wider view of the world than a typical medicine maker could gain. As for the fix Dag was in, it was because of Fawn that he'd come back to life and started down this path in the first place. The simple answers didn't work the way they were supposed to for him. Maybe the problems of the world were too complex for simple answers? Arkady took a sip from one cup, then went out to check on Dag and to give him the other. Once Dag was stable enough to walk steadily, they returned to Arkady's tent.

*************************************************************

Two nights later, Tawa's husband and sister brought Dag a thighbone to bond to as thanks. The following morning, he set out for Vayve Blackturtle's bone shack to arrange permission to bring Fawn over for the making of his new bonded knife. While Arkady and Fawn were waiting for Dag to return, he remembered Fawn's words the night before; she had spoken of a 'horrid ballad'. She was now kin to a Lakewalker, so Arkady thought it would be well for her to better understand Lakewalker ways.

He started by asking, "Which ballad were you talking about last night, when Tawa's kin brought the bone over?"

"It's one where two patrollers meet up with a malice, but neither one has a primed knife. Instead they both have bonded knives so they spend several stanzas arguin' over which of 'em should get to die." She shuddered slightly in her ground.

"It teaches patrollers important lessons, though. And they do like remembering their sacrifices."

She gave him a strange look. "Not always they don't. And I don't like those lessons at all."

"It seems to me you'd want to understand how patrollers think."

Now her look was more pitying. "I love my patroller very much, but I'm not going to like patroller humor anyhow. These are folks who think it's hilarious to come up with the most horrid imaginable ways to get killed."

"But even so...."

"Look, have you ever really listened closely to those heroic ballads?"

Arkady gave a twisted half-smile. "Er, no. I knew from a very young age that I wanted to heal folk. It didn't take me long at all to realize that they don't write heroic songs about the great deeds of medicine makers."

"Count yourselves lucky."

At his pained look, she said, "I don't think I can explain exactly. But next time you get a chance to listen to one of those ballads, instead of imaginin' yourself as one of the folk who get to die in some horrible heroic fashion, try bein' one of the survivors. Imagine the battle's over and you're hearing someone who wasn't there singin' about it. Then see what you think."

"All right, then...." They returned to their tasks, he to writing in Dag's casebook, and she to her spinning.

*************************************************************

Over the next few weeks, Arkady made several attempts to convince Dag that treating Lakewalkers would be a better use of his skills than treating farmers. Problem was, it didn't look like he was getting very far. Dag remained determined to return north someday, as well. It wasn't that he didn't like being here; it was plain to see that Dag greatly valued their time together; rather, this single-minded devotion to 'solving the problem of Greenspring' seemed to be part of who Dag was. It did occur to Arkady, however, that perhaps he might have better luck convincing Fawn. Dag respected her opinions, and she was head of their little tent, after all.

One evening half an hour or so after supper, Dag was being particularly distractable during his right-side-projection strengthening exercises, so Arkady decided to send him out to work off his distraction. "Dag. Go walk around the camp or take your horse out for a run or something. You're not getting anywhere like this. You can try again with the exercises after you wear yourself out a bit." Dag went out to walk in the woods -- he still refused to visit the camp alone, since Fawn wasn't allowed to do so.

Arkady looked over to Fawn, saying, "It seems like the camp Dag comes from in the north is rather different from this one; rougher, and not as comfortable." He reached out with his groundsense to look closely at her ground.

She gave him a sharp look. Suspicion flashed through her ground; she started to say something, then paused. "Well, yes. But that's how they live up north, you know."

He asked, "You were willing to try to make your life in that camp, what would you have thought of doing so in a southern one, instead? I'd think there are some advantages to it."

She sighed. "We figured out pretty well that it doesn't work. I don't think a southern camp would be enough different to change that."

"What exactly didn't work? I gather you weren't accepted there, but it's not like that here, for example."

"It's not much better. Folks put up with me bein' here on account of we're not going to stay -- they don't think they have to get rid of us yet, 'cause we'll leave on our own soon enough. If they thought we'd try to stay, there are plenty of folk who'd suddenly feel a need to do somethin' about it. And really, some things were better up north."

"Like what?"

She paused to think before answering. "Well, most of 'em wanted me gone, but some were willin' to be friends. Sarri Otter wasn't comfortable with me, but we did weaving and candle-making together, and she was willin' to talk some. Dag's uncle Cattagus was even better -- he's the one taught me how to make arrows, and he didn't care what folk thought about him bein' friends with me. He healed up some burns on my hand once." She touched her right hand, and Arkady could see the spurt of memory that went along with it -- something bad was associated with the burns. "Dag's aunt Mari and some of his patroller friends were all right, too. Most of them were only friendly on account of Dag wanting 'em to be, but they didn't mind it. Nobody here but you is willin' to talk to me and answer questions much. Well, there's Levan some -- he don't mind explainin' about remedies and his herb garden -- but that's about all."

He considered her words, then asked, "Suppose there were some who were willing to be friends here -- folks who accepted you. Wouldn't that change things?"

She smiled wryly at him. "Not enough. See, it's too unequal. If someone wants to harm ... a farmer, there's not much can be done about it. The Lakewalker has too many advantages, seein' grounds, when farmers can't." She was remembering something very unpleasant, Arkady could see; whatever had been associated with the burns was also related to this. "I don't know what I could do if someone started readin' my ground and comin' up with ways to hurt me; maybe go away before they learn too much. But what if I don't know why they're readin' my ground? Like you're doin' now."

He blushed bright red and withdrew his groundsense from her. "Er, sorry. How did you know, anyway?"

"It's in the eyes. First a Lakewalker looks with his eyes at what he's readin', then his eyes forget to keep watchin' it."

It seemed to Arkady that he wasn't going to be making much progress with Fawn, either. Though he did have a better sense of why Dag was so intent on creating ground shields.

*************************************************************

Dag's patroller boys, Remo and Barr, arrived back from their exchange patrol on a cold rainy afternoon. They'd managed to mess up their love lives beautifully; it was amazing how many ways young folk could find to give themselves trouble. Much more startling was the information that came out about Dag's prior life in Luthlia. That Dag had had a prior marriage -- to a woman from a tent Wolverine, it seemed -- was no surprise; that he'd been good enough as a patroller to be named company captain up in the wildest, most dangerous hinterland of the seven was a big one. Further, for all Arkady might not know much about northern patrolling, he was quite sure that 'just another northern malice scuffle' would not have resulted in some two dozen ballads that were still being sung twenty years later. He was also quite sure that he wasn't going to get a clear story about this Wolf War from Dag. But it looked like this was going to give him the answer to the question of why Dag had been so delayed in his development, of what could possibly have happened to him that would shut him down so completely for, apparently, twenty years. Arkady decided that if there were so many songs about this Wolf War, probably he'd be able to find an answer from one of their patrollers that evening -- preferably not Neeta, though.

Supper had its lessons, too. Dag was an experienced teacher; he didn't miss opportunities to pass instruction onto his two boys. Tonight's lesson was on the need for southern patrollers to exchange north -- not just for the northerners' sakes but for the southerners' as well. Listening, Arkady realized he'd never even noticed the problems of the south as such. The careless behavior of southern patrollers had seemed perfectly normal to him, because he'd never seen anything different. Once again, Dag's wide travels had given him the ability to see problems that were invisible to Arkady. He wondered yet again if makers ought to go on exchange just as patrollers do, after all.

By the end of supper, the rain had stopped, so he informed the others that he was going out for the evening; not unusual for him these days -- it'd been many years since he'd taken as much interest in going out to the camp as he was doing lately. First stop, Tapp's tent -- he was the most avid collector of heroic ballads Arkady'd ever met. It was a good distance around the south end of the lake to get there; he was going to have to leave his boots outside when he got home for the neighbor women to clean up.

When he arrived, Arkady first asked after Tapp's gut troubles; Tapp stated they were fine now, but that his patrol leader had told him that he was to take home leave this patrol, which had gone out just last week. Arkady assured Tapp that it was indeed best to wait, then asked, "Have you ever heard of a malice fight called the Wolf War?"

Tapp answered enthusiastically, "Of course! Everybody knows about that one! It's one of the greatest battles in the last hundred years or so! There's a wonderfully exciting ballad about it, too -- The Battle of Wolf Ridge! Last fall when we got the report about the malice in Raintree, we had some great talks comparing the two malices. I say the Wolf one was worse, because it killed a lot more folks than the Raintree one did."

Arkady stared. "The Raintree malice killed close to six hundred people! I wouldn't think Luthlia could recover from that great a loss for a long time." He hadn't heard of them desperately calling for others to come live up there.

Tapp stared back, looking puzzled. "No it didn't, it only killed about eighty -- seventy or so from the one camp and about ten others from a couple of neighboring ones. The Wolf War malice killed about a hundred and twenty." Oh, right. Farmers don't count. He felt slightly queasy contemplating that five hundred farmers didn't equal forty Lakewalkers. Tapp continued by saying, "Captain Tellon says the Raintree outbreak was worse than the Wolf War one, because it almost reached Farmer Flats, and if it had, it would've been unstoppable, while the Luthlia folk had already managed to cut down how much damage the Wolf Malice could do by evacuating all the camps in the area. Now, me, I figure 'almost' doesn't count, and after all, the Oleana company that came over stopped it right quick. They didn't even have anybody killed -- nobody's going to make ballads about that battle."

Arkady hadn't quite realized that last summer's situation was as dire as all that, even after Dag's descriptions. He also had an uneasy feeling he was about to understand Fawn's dislike for heroic ballads. He still wanted to know more about the Wolf War, so he asked, "How does this Battle of Wolf Ridge song go, anyway?"

Tapp said enthusiastically, "That was one great victory! Let me see, I don't remember all of it. It's a long one, you see."

He started into the song. His voice had cracked many years back, and he hadn't had that great of a singing voice even then. Combining that with his decidedly imperfect recollection of the verses made for a rather painful listening experience. As per Fawn's instruction, Arkady decided to imagine himself as Dag. According to the song, there were fifty patrollers on a ridge guarding the flank for sixteen below who were trying to sneak up on the Wolf Malice. Dag was the leader of the fifty, it seemed, though no names were given. The song alternated between the two groups. Tapp had barely begun singing when Arkady learned the first horrifying detail. "What? They were fighting five _hundred _of these huge wolves and man-wolves? And you say they won the war?"

"Sure they did! It's wonderful! Just listen."

Arkady listened. This wonderful victory seemed to consist of people getting killed right and left, both on the ridge and down below. He closed his ground early in the song. After a time, Tapp reached the point where Dag lost his hand and killed his mud-wolf. Arkady cringed imagining that experience, but worse details followed quickly. "Wait, what? '_In his cord I feel his ground?'_ The patrol leader woman who took command was D- the captain's wife?"

"Sure!" Tapp continued with the song. In a short time, there were only four left alive down below and about twenty alive up on the ridge. It occurred to Arkady to wonder how to tell the difference between a great victory and a crushing defeat. About the time the final four below entered the lair, the defense on the ridge collapsed. He wondered just how many horrible ways there were to be killed by wolves and wolf-like monsters; the song seemed intent on listing as many as possible. Dag's wife died near the end. Of the four who entered the lair, two were ground-ripped, then the remaining two both reached the malice and stabbed it at the same time, with their knives breaking simultaneously. All agreed that this monster was worthy of two deaths. Arkady supposed that was one way to tell the difference -- a dead malice. He was sure Dag didn't think it was anything like so great a victory as Tapp thought it was.

"Doesn't that ballad just make you want to go north and fight malices?"

No, it didn't. It made him want to wash the filth off himself, except this wasn't on his body -- his shower and bath barrel were going to be no help here. It wasn't on his ground, either -- it must have been his soul that was violated by that horror of a song. Feeling nauseated, he gave a ghastly imitation of a smile and stated that he'd better head back to his tent.

Tapp was burbling on, oblivious to Arkady's troubles. "We don't get wars like that down here at all." Arkady imagined Fawn and Dag, in chorus, saying 'Count yourselves lucky!' Tapp followed that piece of wisdom with, "Can't you just imagine being one of those great captains leading their companies back to their camps, covered in glory?" Arkady thought that a more accurate description was 'being carried unconscious on a litter back to his camp, covered in gore.' More from Tapp: "I don't suppose I'll ever get to be in one of those battles, but I sure wish I could meet one of those captains. Either the Oleana one or the Luthlian one. They'd be such splendid sights, all commanding and powerful!" Arkady pictured Dag at the entrance to the camp, looking like a mud-bedraggled scarecrow, with Neeta sneering at him.

Arkady'd reached the door by this point, but as he opened it, he said, "Actually, you have met him."

"What? Which one?"

"Both -- they're the same person. After his wife died, he left Luthlia to return to his former home in Oleana."

"Can't be! I'd remember meeting someone that splendid. Are you sure? When did I meet him?"

"Yes, I'm sure. You met him about two months ago. You greeted him with 'Who the blight is he?', and when he told you he was a new maker on exchange, you called him a ham-handed novice. I don't think he was all that offended; he knew perfectly well that was exactly what he was."

"No, can't be! That strange one-handed apprentice of yours? He's not splendid at all!"

"I don't think northerners care much about splendid -- they care about killing malices."

Tapp stared open-mouthed. Arkady had never seen Tapp shocked speechless before.

He left Tapp's tent reeling and disoriented. Tired from holding his ground closed for as long as he'd done, Arkady let it open as soon as he was away from the tent. He wandered in the evening gloom, not quite sure where he was going. After a short time, he found himself at Vayve's bone shack. It was late for the daffodils, but the tulips were just coming in; except that it was coming on to night and the blossoms were already closed. He persuaded a few open and looked deeply into them in the growing dimness -- he wouldn't be able to see them at all in a short time. He wasn't up to facing Dag yet; he was afraid he'd start crying if he saw him just now. He calmed down in ten or fifteen minutes or so, and was considering actually returning home, when he felt Vayve approaching. He waited for her to arrive.

She shook her head wryly at him. "Normally when folks want to admire my flowers, they come in the daytime."

He sighed, and let them close.

She asked, "Is this something you can talk about? I could feel the agitation in your ground all the way back at my tent."

He thought for a bit. There wasn't much reason to keep the matter private; it was going to be all over camp by tomorrow for certain. He wasn't sure what to say, though. He reached his hand toward her, but then shook his head.

A ground-tap reached to her from her home; likely from Tellon. She and Arkady both reached out with their groundsenses. Trouble at her tent; it seemed her son Devon was hurt -- not too serious, but needing attention. Like Tapp, he was something of a regular at the medicine tent; he was constantly overmatching his strength trying to keep up with his older brother Kival. They both turned and trotted to her tent. When they arrived, they found seven-year-old Devon on the front porch sitting on Tellon's lap, with a bowl of lake water on a table in front of him and a lantern to the side. His right hand was in the bowl. Kival and his two sisters were looking on from inside the house.

Tellon explained, "I called them in to go to bed; they'd been having yet another argument, and the two older ones outran him to the tent. Kival slammed the door and caught Devon's hand in it. Doesn't look like anything's broken, but I figured he'd do well with some cold water to keep the swelling down. Kival brought the water over from the lake just a minute ago." Kival nodded from the doorway; he was visibly distressed at having hurt his brother.

Vayve ordered Kival and his sisters to get into bed; they fled.

Arkady said to Devon, "Let's see the hand, then." As Devon held it out, he looked it over. Not too bad; he reached out with his right-side projection and began making simple repairs. "You know, young man, hands aren't made for blocking open doors." Devon nodded shakily; he was too shocked to say much just then.

Vayve gave him a quizzical look. "I didn't think you normally did this kind of groundwork."

He answered, a bit absently, "I don't have to conserve my energy nearly so much now that Dag is doing groundwork as well." Also, it felt good to be able to make something all better. He finished with the repairs and told Devon to be more careful in the future. Devon stayed sitting in his papa's lap; it didn't look like a good time to send him to bed quite yet.

Vayve asked, "So why _were _you in my garden?"

Arkady sighed. "I'd just been listening to a heroic ballad. All I can figure is that patrollers are crazy, enjoying those things."

Tellon gave a half-grin. "I won't deny it. Which one? And what was so bad about it?"

"It was the Battle of Wolf Ridge, and I did as Fawn told me to do; I imagined myself as a survivor hearing the song afterwards."

Vayve looked uncertain. "Do I know that one? Sounds familiar."

Tellon answered, "It was popular around here about five to ten years ago, when it first showed up. Now it's just another song of long-ago days to most of our patrollers. But it's not so long-ago; it happened up in Luthlia about twenty years ago; five years before I arrived there, myself."

She asked, "Would this be the one where the last person standing on the ridge is a woman patrol leader?" She paused a moment, glancing at Devon. "The last syllable of her fate rhymed with scowled, if I recall correctly."

Arkady cringed. "That's the one."

Tellon commented, "There weren't very many survivors to pick in that song -- who did you choose?"

"Her husband."

Vayve looked questioningly at Tellon and Arkady. Tellon answered her. "That would be the company captain up on the ridge, then. He and his wife were Wolverines; the folk from that tent are widely considered to be the fiercest patrollers in all Luthlia. There's a saying up there that any Wolverine can take on ten wolves -- it refers to that battle; there were a good number of Wolverines in the company and a few in the group below that went after the malice's lair. Most of them died, of course."

Arkady closed his ground again. He really didn't need to know that Dag had lost a good part of his tent family at the same time. Vayve and Tellon both glanced at him. Vayve asked, "I thought the captain went down earlier in the song, and that was why she was in charge; wasn't he killed, then?"

Tellon answered, "No, though it was said he'd never be able to patrol again. The Wolf Malice was an extremely skilled battle commander -- by the time word got out about its emergence, it had ground-ripped a good number of patrollers in addition to the wolves that it started on. Its newest batches of mud-wolves not only had groundsense, they could veil their grounds. During the main attack, two large groups of mud-wolves and wolf-men attacked, with some to the right and others to the left; they were trying to create a gap for a hidden, well-veiled third group of its fighters to break through the ring of patrollers. When one formed, the captain spotted what was happening just in time. He ran over right when the lead wolf was reaching the top of the hill where the gap between his patrollers had formed. It jumped for his throat and he blocked it with his left arm. '_Down clamped its jaw; up slashed his knife. It took his hand; he took its life_.' The song doesn't make it clear that he lived, but the report listed him as a survivor."

Devon piped up, "Papa! Why didn't you say Arkady's 'prentice Dag is a captain like you are?"

They looked at him in some astonishment. Vayve asked, "What's this, Devon?"

"Dag said it! A mud-wolf bit off his hand, and he killed it at the same time. He's that captain!"

Tellon blinked, then blinked some more. "Oh, no, no. Just because he got the same kind of injury doesn't mean he's the same person. He's a former Oleana patroller, not a Luthlian one."

Arkady decided there wasn't any point in trying to deny this one. "Actually, Tellon, Devon is right. Twenty years ago, he was Captain Dag Wolverine Leech Luthlia. He'd been from Oleana originally; he returned there after he lost his company, much of his family, his hand, and his wife at Wolf Ridge." And his youth, and his hopes and dreams, and his will to live.

Tellon stared. Devon, excited, said, "Wait till I tell Kival!" He hopped off his papa's lap to run inside.

Vayve called after him, before he got to the door, "Kival's not yet asleep. You two can talk quietly for a short time if you wish, but if I hear shouting or loud noises, I will come in and put a stop to it." Devon nodded and went inside.

Arkady closed his eyes. The nightmarish visions from the battle were returning. Vayve and Tellon broke into his reverie by commenting, nearly in chorus, "That explains a great deal!" Both paused.

Arkady said, "I know what that tale explained to me. What did it explain to you?"

They looked at each other; Vayve chose to speak first. "That so-questionable knife-making he did on the river and that tale of his about his bonded knife that got so strangely primed at Glassforge. Remember how he tossed his bonded knife and his primed knife to the farmer girl there?" Arkady nodded. "They were a crossed pairing from his wife Kauneo; the one bonded to Dag was made from her thigh and the other was primed with her death. Take the natural affinity between the two knives and the fact that the two of them had just begun trying to have children and combine that with the dying ground of the farmer girl's baby, and a three-way affinity was created. She tried to create a home for a family: his involution in her bone together with a baby." She shook her head. "All he said to me about her was that it was a long time ago. But he's done twenty-six personal kills; most after that time, and all without ever using that primed knife. He must have been holding it back the whole time. I can only suppose he had a habit of carrying two or maybe even three primed knives with him at all times. You know how some patrollers feel naked without their weapons? I think he's the sort of person who feels naked without a primed knife."

Tellon asked, "Twenty-six kills? Do either of you have any idea how crazy a number that is? I doubt you could find anyone north or south with more than nine! Are you sure that's right?"

Both Arkady and Vayve nodded. Arkady said, "He's far more likely to understate his numbers than to overstate them. He's not one to brag."

Tellon shook his head in amazement. "Vayve told me about how he'd been named captain for dealing with the Raintree malice last summer. I couldn't see why the Oleana camp captain would have picked him. A camp that's large enough to come up with a company in less than a day during the heart of patrolling season is not going to be fresh out of company captains. If their top commanders were away, I could see picking a particularly skillful patrol leader; there might well be some that are as good as any of the captains. But he didn't do that either; instead he went and found the one patroller in all his camp who'd gone and set off the biggest scandal the camp had likely seen in many a year by showing up string-bound to a farmer girl! Stranger yet, the patrollers didn't reject his leadership or have the sort of bad morale trouble that I'd have expected; instead, they zipped in and killed the malice, made the job look easy. But if he used to be Captain Wolverine of Luthlia, suddenly all is much clearer. Except for wondering why he wasn't promoted back to captain again fifteen or more years ago."

Arkady thought that was easy enough to figure out. He didn't think he'd want to do captaining again, either, after an experience like that one.

Tellon said thoughtfully, "You know, 'to find the best makers, go south' -- you're widely regarded as the best maker in the south."

Arkady pointed out, "I can hardly claim to have met all the other makers in the south. It seems a bit much to assume that."

Tellon continued with, "And of course, 'to find the best patrollers, go north' -- with twenty-six kills and captaining both at Wolf Ridge and at Bonemarsh, your apprentice has a really good claim to being the best patroller in all the north."

Arkady sat staring at nothing. Vayve, looking at him, pointed out, "There's this to consider. All this last month, you've not had much luck convincing the camp to want to take him in permanently. This'll change things for sure."

Arkady blinked, smiled, then shook his head ruefully. "You do realize that's completely crazy, don't you? We don't have any use for the best patroller in the world. That person belongs in the north, where the malices are. We do have plenty of use for a second groundsetter, though."

Vayve smiled. "Yes, well, folks can get pretty foolish at times. We've never been able to claim anything special about ourselves in patrolling. Now, suddenly...."

They chatted a bit more, then Arkady went home. As he walked, he spent some time wondered how many other Luthlian company captains would have responded to being called 'feckless fool' by blinking and offering to try again. He expected most of them would have clobbered him on the spot.

*************************************************************

Vayve proved right about the camp and the council. Further, for all Dag hated the new attention on him, his refusal to answer questions and to meet with people in their home tents actually served to increase the attention on him rather than diminish it.

In less than a week, Arkady'd heard from most members of the camp council that they wanted to get to know his apprentice better. He made sure they knew that Dag would never accept an invitation that excluded Fawn, and waited. Sure enough, just about another week later, he learned from Jolia that Captain Antan was planning to invite him and Dag and his companions to a pig roast -- not exactly inviting Fawn specifically, but clearly with the intention that she would come.

At the pig roast, after everyone had eaten their fill, Antan, the three council members who were present, and a company captain who was tent-kin to Bala all gathered around Dag, ostensibly to get to know him better. Arkady and Fawn were also seated on either side of Dag, while Remo and Barr were some distance off talking with Neeta and Tavia. The questions started out reasonably friendly, though Dag still refused to discuss Wolf Ridge in any detail. When he insisted on telling them about the farmer town of Greenspring from last summer, Arkady had to restrain himself from slapping Dag. He was supposed to be trying to get them to offer to let him stay; surely this quest of his could wait for a more opportune time. The conversation got more tense when they began asking him about arrangements for how he might live in their camp longer-term; they were not enthusiastic about offering tent rights to a farmer girl and kept trying to get him to agree that such should not be expected of them -- all without ever quite saying that they were considering making that offer to him. This made for some pretty roundabout questioning. When Captain Antan suggested that perhaps a good way to deal with Fawn would be to have her live just outside camp in a nice home that Dag could visit regularly, as if she were some paramour that he was concealing from the camp, Dag suggested perhaps Antan ought to try that arrangement out himself with his own wife and see how well it worked. Arkady didn't think this was a good time to tell Dag that Antan surely thought he was being very liberal and open-handed to suggest such a bending of tradition.

In all, Arkady was glad when Dag and Fawn left early; perhaps he could repair some of the damage. Unfortunately, even Jolia wasn't too enthusiastic about making any offers to Dag just now -- she pointed out that he didn't really seem to want to join them, if this evening's conversation was any indication. Arkady tried explaining that Dag didn't believe he'd ever be made such an offer in the first place and that would be one reason why he was reacting the way he was. Surely, though, if the offer were to be made in spite of that, Dag would accept it, wouldn't she agree? And there was no doubt the camp would benefit greatly if he did so.

*************************************************************

The following morning Arkady discovered that Fawn was newly pregnant. Dag was distressed and constantly peeking at her ground, but trying -- not very successfully -- to conceal his feelings; as a result, she was confused and began tossing worried looks back at him. It was clear she didn't know, but it was much too soon to insist on discussing the matter.

Five days later, Dag still hadn't discussed the matter with her. Arkady spoke with Dag; he got no clear results, but there was one side benefit -- he thought he might finally be making progress in persuading Dag to consider staying at New Moon Cutoff. Later, when he and Dag were finishing lunch, Fawn showed up, having come over from the farmers market. The distress in her ground coupled with her wish to speak with Dag in private spoke volumes -- clearly someone had been less circumspect than they should have, and she now knew she was pregnant. He volunteered to go to the medicine tent on his own and set off.

By evening, with no sign of Dag or Fawn, Arkady was slightly worried. He returned to his tent to discover it empty. A note lay on the dining table. Now he was very worried. Picking up the note, he squinted at Dag's handwriting. He'd gone off to treat a sick youngster; no mention but also no question that it was a farmer child. Now Arkady was beyond worry -- he was terrified. And furious. And not just with Dag, either. Imagining suitable punishments for the two of them was not nearly distracting enough to calm him down. Dag had promised! He knew better, and so did Fawn. He was just getting accepted by the camp and just beginning to establish himself as a valuable asset. Now he would surely be sent away. Arkady closed his eyes and kept them closed. Maybe he could conceal what had happened? How long were the two of them going to be gone, anyway? He'd have to try; the alternative was unthinkable. A bit later, when Remo and Barr came in from yet another combat practice date with Neeta and Tavia, they asked after Dag and Fawn. There was no use trying to conceal this from them. He showed them Dag's note and made them promise not to discuss the matter without his permission.

The following morning came and Dag didn't. Neither did Fawn. Whatever he was doing out in farmer country was not something that only needed a day or so, it seemed. Just how long was it going to take? He half-closed his ground to conceal his agitation and went to the medicine tent without them; at the tent, folks knew of Fawn's pregnancy and they knew she didn't know. If he stated he was giving the two of them the day off, he might be able to lead Challa to believe they were discussing that matter. There wasn't anything better he could think of to try.

The attempt went poorly right from the start. Nola had a great deal to say about not-very-loyal farmer girls who eloped with cute farmer boys from the market. Levan's other apprentice, Cerie, did some hemming and hawing about how it might not really be that, but she didn't give any alternative explanation. Arkady was too disgusted to argue with them -- that was easily the most implausible description of their vanishing he could imagine. Surely nobody would believe such an absurd tale. Except that, as it turned out, everybody all throughout the camp believed it. Didn't any of them have the sense to see that Fawn would never do such a thing? Thinking it over, though -- as calmly as he was able to think about anything today -- Arkady recalled how Fawn had stated that nobody in the camp ever really talked to her. That night, when Neeta and Tavia came over to talk about the goings-on, Arkady agreed to allow the two of them to see Dag's note; they also promised not to discuss the matter.

Another day came without Dag or Fawn. Arkady's pretense was in utter disarray. Shortly after he arrived at the medicine tent, Captain Antan Bullrush appeared; he was well worked up into his finest bull-in-a-glass-shop form. Naturally if everyone else in the camp was believing Nola's foolishness, of course he'd believe it, too. Arkady made one last hopeless attempt to quash the stupid elopement rumor without confessing to Dag's actual actions; it didn't go any better than he guessed it would. Nor did explaining the true reason for Dag's absence. In the first place, Antan was so worked up about the elopement story that he didn't want to hear any other; in the second place, well, Arkady could hardly pretend that the true tale wasn't every bit as inflammatory as the other. Antan demonstrated inflamed quite well at this point in their shouting argument; with how very red his face got, Arkady considered telling him that he was risking a stroke. He did manage to argue somewhat successfully for patience; Dag valued his time here and would surely return when he finished whatever he was doing. The time for interrogating him would come then. Antan declared that he would only wait one more day. If Dag wasn't back by tomorrow night, he, Captain Antan Bullrush, would find him and force some answers out of him.

The day took forever to pass; then the next day came and went, similarly interminably; still no news.

The following morning, Antan and Tapp, accompanied by Remo and Barr, rushed off to the nearby farmer community without even troubling to learn who the farmer boy was who had spoken with Fawn or where he lived. Arkady supposed it was too much to hope that he would spend the entire day wandering around in farmer country without finding them. Neeta had spent the previous day asking around camp and learned enough to know roughly where to go to find Dag; she set off shortly after Antan did, in the hope of warning him and helping him escape Antan's ire. Arkady couldn't see what would be gained here; he was pretty sure there would be no escape possible from this one.

Antan returned in the early afternoon with Tapp beside him. Neeta was traveling behind with Barr and Remo; all three looked thoroughly dejected. Antan was looking furiously satisfied; Tapp looked like he couldn't decide between stern and dismayed. One look at the group of them and Arkady's heart sank. There was no way this could be a sign of anything good.

Sure enough, Antan had thrown Dag out of camp. After another hour spent shouting and being shouted back at, Arkady concluded that there was no changing Antan's decision directly. He didn't know what Dag had said that had so infuriated the man, but Antan's politest name for him was now 'that blighted farmer-loving renegade'; the less polite names declared some decidedly unlikely sexual behavior on the parts of Dag and his ancestors. Arkady switched from wondering if Antan was going to have a stroke to more than half hoping he would. But when Arkady furiously declared that he wasn't going to get away with this outrage, Antan smirked and said the deed had been done and there was nothing Arkady could do about it. Arkady shouted, "We'll just see about that!", and stalked off to find the other council members.

Arkady spent the rest of that day trying to convince them to overrule Antan's order. Nidan wouldn't listen to any arguments. Jolia and Farri were sympathetic; they at least agreed that Antan had overstepped himself badly by pushing himself inside a maker-apprentice relationship. Neither, however, was inclined to argue with Antan about his actions. As far as they were concerned, Antan may have handled the situation poorly, but they weren't about to stick their necks out for someone who'd snuck off to heal a farmer. Somewhat more surprisingly, Bala -- who'd disapproved of bringing him in originally and who didn't have any kin who'd benefited by Dag's medicine making work -- actually was inclined to argue to return Dag to camp. Or, at least, she was until she learned that none of the other councillors were going to fight back with her. Then she backed down, saying that it was clear the argument was lost and that there was no point fighting a lost battle.

Barr put a tremendous effort into arguing with the patrol to convince them to support bringing Dag back. Neeta and Remo tried as well, but really, Barr was the driving force. As near as Arkady could tell, he'd imprinted on Dag during their journey down the rivers just like a baby bird raised by a person. It didn't matter, though. However much sympathy they won, they weren't going to be able to change Antan's ruling.

The next day, Arkady tried with some of the camp's other makers. All agreed Antan was far out of line in evicting Dag; but rather than supporting him, several stated that Antan should have ordered Arkady to do the deed instead. This produced more shouting arguments that went no farther than the ones with Antan had done. He remembered Fawn's description of how Dag had shot a plunkin full of arrows after a particularly unpleasant argument with his own people. Except for the fact that Arkady was hopeless with a bow, he was more than slightly inclined to try the same. Vayve and her husband Tellon were more sympathetic, but they both stated that they weren't about to pick a fight with Antan for Dag's sake.

Arkady went to Challa next. She'd been almost in tears the previous day when she first learned of Dag's eviction. He started with, "Challa, I need your help. The camp council won't back me to overrule Antan's order. Could you lend your voice?"

Challa looked down, frowning deeply. "Arkady, you can't tell me Dag didn't know better than to go off like he did -- you'd told him yourself about your troubles in Hatchet Slough, didn't you?"

Arkady frowned back. "Well, yes, but you know him. Do you really think he'd ever turn down a request to save a child's life? Especially since he knows he wouldn't leave the child beguiled. That would be a terrible choice for any medicine maker."

Challa paused, still frowning. "What you're saying is that if we take him back, he'd surely do it again. We can't ever take that risk, and you know why better than I do."

"I'm not so sure about that any more, myself. Fawn understands what it costs us to do groundwork, so I don't think it's impossible to teach other farmers. If we explain ourselves clearly and don't leave any of them beguiled, it ought to be possible to make something work out."

"And if you're wrong, then what? I did warn you about getting mixed up with farmers; I think you've gotten too wound up in Dag's strange claims. Let Lakewalkers keep to Lakewalkers and farmers to farmers; you're offering to endanger your entire camp on 'ought to be possible'."

In the end, she wouldn't change her position; Dag had gotten himself into this trouble knowing full well that what he was doing was forbidden; in being sent away, he'd gotten no more than he deserved. When she tried to point him to taking on a different apprentice, like Silda, he wheeled around and marched off in a fury.

He returned to his tent with Barr following close behind. Remo was spending the night in Neeta's tent; he'd just finished telling Barr he wasn't going to go north the next day. Arkady figured he was hiding from them, but didn't bother to say anything. The supper basket was waiting outside, packed just as the last several days' ones had been -- with enough for himself and Remo and Barr. He kicked the basket off his porch and entered his tent after Barr, slamming the door behind him. When he reached the dining table, his fury receded, leaving despair in its place. He dropped abruptly into a chair, which creaked slightly in protest. "Oh, Barr. I've failed. There's no hope. Dag is going to go north and try to be a medicine maker with almost no training. I thought I could save him, but all I've managed is to delay his death slightly."

Barr said hesitantly, "He's very resourceful, and very hard to kill. Maybe he can do it."

Arkady shook his head sadly. "No.... He'll get in over his head and won't know enough to realize it until it's too late." _Just like Sutaw. _As his eyes started to fill, he turned away. "Barr. Just go away somewhere, I don't care where. Come back in an hour or so." He put his head in his arms at the table.

Barr walked to the door and opened it, then he paused. "Maybe you should go with him, then."

Shocked, Arkady looked over at him. His face was wet, but he did nothing about it. "I can't do that! The camp needs me!"

Barr looked down a moment. Then he said, "They don't need you. The camp got by for a long time before you were ever here and they'll have to do it again someday anyway. Lots of camps don't even have groundsetters, and they get by just fine. Dag does need you. You said it yourself."

Arkady paused. He hadn't thought of it that way before. He wiped his face and said, "That'd convince the camp council that I meant what I said, too." And if it didn't, well, he'd been thinking for a while now that he'd missed out on a great deal by not seeing the wider world; he wasn't going to get a better chance to make up that loss, now was he?

He stood and started gathering all his portable medicine making gear. About an hour later, he had a large pile of items, some fragile. Perplexed, he asked Barr how to go about taking it all with him.

Barr answered, "Well, looks like that'll need a couple of pack horses right there. I guess if we could get four horses somehow -- two for riding and two for the gear, not counting Copperhead and Magpie, maybe we could manage all this stuff. Or, if that's too expensive, you could leave it behind."

Arkady shook his head. "The camp council won't believe I'm serious if I don't bring the portable medicine tent." _Am I serious? _"Enough credit for four horses and the gear they'll need isn't a problem; I could buy most of the herd, if I wanted. Could you go to stores and the paddocks to get me what I'll be needing tomorrow morning?" At Barr's nod, he added, "Get the best horses you can find; no need to try to save money."

By time for bed, they'd gotten a fair amount of the gear into packages suitable for travel. He and Barr had also retrieved their supper and taken care of its contents as best they could; this task required a bit of groundsetting on the clay jar inside.

*************************************************************

The next morning, Barr woke Arkady at dawn. "Arkady? Are you still sure we're going to do this? 'Cause if you are, it's time to get ready."

Arkady looked blearily at him. "Yes, I'm sure. Go get supplies and horses; I'll pack the rest of my gear safely for traveling and have it on the porch waiting." He went out to wash up, dressed, and resumed the packing from last night. By the time Barr returned, the porch was covered with packages for putting into packsaddles.

Barr looked over the packages. "Where are your clothes? A bedroll? Soap? Shaving kit?"

"Oh, right." Arkady grabbed the pair of saddle bags that Barr was holding out and dashed inside. He trotted through his tent looking around and trying to figure out what he might need. Stuffing things into the bags all the while, he remembered towels and a comb at the last moment and got them as well.

He stepped outside and handed the bedroll and saddlebags to Barr, who put them onto the horse he was to ride. He'd already managed to put all the packages into the two packsaddles. Arkady gulped a moment; it'd been almost twenty years since he'd ridden a horse, and he wasn't sure he remembered how. Barr gave him a boost onto the gelding he was to ride, then climbed up onto Copperhead, putting a heavy, clumsy persuasion in to keep the beast from giving him trouble. Arkady's mind was reeling. How had he ever gotten himself into this situation? He had to be mad. How long before the folk at stores or the paddocks managed to tell Antan or the council what was happening? What would folks do when they figured it out?

Barr spoke up, "Close your ground. If anyone spots us, they'll be demanding explanations and trying to stop us. Like Fawn says about running away: _The first rule is, don't let folks argue with you_."

Running away. Arkady hadn't thought of what he was doing that way, either. These were quite the days for new ways of thinking. No question about it, he definitely had to be mad to be doing this. Nothing else could save Dag, though. He decided to hold onto that last thought to keep himself moving forward. They set off across the shore road to the wooded path that Fawn claimed went right to the farmers market, with four horses trailing in a line behind them. Watching the woods pass by, he didn't open his ground until he was on the farmers market road a good half-mile beyond the camp's boundaries. The world opened up around him. Anything was possible.


End file.
